Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been working on a consulting project as part of my other company, Liz Lynch Ltd. I was brought in by a friend, another independent consultant, who sold the project and needed two other people to work with him because of the tight timeframe. He brought in a third independent consultant to round out the team.
Theoretically, all three of us are competitors. We have similar skills, backgrounds and expertise. In fact, we all worked together at one point in our careers at the same consulting firm Booz Allen & Hamilton, and two of us were classmates at Stanford Business School. In other words, if there was a strategy project that needed only one consultant, we’re all similar enough that we’d end up having to compete with one another to get it.
But because this particular project needed three people to finish the job, we’re collaborators, not competitors. In fact, the project could not have been sold in the first place if my friend had proposed he do everything himself.
Depending on your profession, maintaining a network of competitors can be a smart thing. Sometimes a project is just too big for one person, or you need different skills. Other times you may be too busy to take on additional work, so being able to make a referral still allows you to help your prospect. And it can work both ways where overflow work from another consultant could spill over to you.
If you approach networking with an abundance mentality, there will always be plenty of opportunities to go around.
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